Newsgroups: comp.parallel From: Hagit Attiya Subject: NEW BOOK Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, The Technion Date: 16 Aug 1998 06:37:07 GMT Message-ID: <6r5umj$hvr$1@encore.ece.cmu.edu> Distributed Computing: Fundamentals, Simulations, and Advanced Topics By Hagit Attiya and Jennifer Welch http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/~hagit/DC/ This book covers the main elements of the theory of distributed computing, in a unifying approach which emphasizes the similarities between different models, when possible, or explains inherent discrepancies, when they exist. The book presents up-to-date results in a precise, and detailed, yet accessible manner. The book highlights techniques and results that are applicable in several places throughout the text. This approach exposes the inherent similarities in solutions to seemingly diverse problems. The major models of distributed computing are covered, varying by the mode of communication (message passing and shared memory), by the synchrony assumptions (synchronous, asynchronous and clocked), and by the failure type (crash and Byzantine). The relationships between the various models are demonstrated by simulations showing that algorithms designed for one model can be run in another model. The book covers a variety of problem domains within the models, including: leader election, mutual exclusion, consensus and clock synchronization. It presents several recent developments, including fast mutual exclusion algorithms, distributed shared memory, the wait-free hierarchy, and sparse network covers. The text contains many accompanying figures and examples. Each chapter ends with a set of exercises and notes that discuss practical applications in existing systems, as well as a bibliographic history of the ideas. Solutions manual is available. May 1998 464pp. ISBN 0-07-709352 6 McGraw-Hill Publishing Company -- Articles to bigrigg+parallel@cs.cmu.edu (Admin: bigrigg@cs.cmu.edu) Archive: http://www.hensa.ac.uk/parallel/internet/usenet/comp.parallel